5.3 Discussions on Lecturers’ Roles in MALL
5.3.2.5 Lecturers’ Roles in The Future and Students’ Expectations
to express their opinions about whether lecturers could be replaced by MALL devices in the future. As the study revealed, all interviewees believed MALL devices could not replace lecturers. This finding is corresponded with findings of Hsu (2013), and Montrieux et al. (2015). Findings of Hsu (2013) correlated to the culture. Specifically, his study investigated perceptions of undergraduates from seven different countries/regions (India, Japan, Macao, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand) at three Taiwanese universities. Students who were from Taiwan, Japan, and Thailand believed that teachers could not be replaced by technology. The researcher suggested that it might be because in these cultures, learners greatly respected the status of teachers and lecturers in the classroom. Vietnam is also a country having high respect for teachers and lecturers so the culture may contribute partly to explain why Vietnamese students in the current study strongly believed that lecturers could not be substituted by technological tools. Apart from tertiary students, Ali et al. (2018) found that EFL teachers also considered themselves as a key point in MALL implementation.
Participants in this study believed that teachers could prevent students’ ignorance from mobile devices’ distractions during classes. Moreover, teachers also believed that they were necessary to prevent cheating and copying on portable tools when students were tested.
There were three major reasons given by the students in explaining why students demanded lecturers: emotion, feedback, and explanation. Some students found no emotions when learning on mobile devices. Instead, they needed to have physical contacts with their lecturers to establish feelings in learning which were considerably important to make learners engaged more in teaching and learning process. Hayati et al. (2011) suggested that a language class should not be completely mobile-centered since teachers should play a role as real providers of input as well as inspiration in class. Sometimes teachers may find student-teacher interaction motivated their students and hence, enliven classes. The finding of this present study confirms the significance
of emotional aspect in teaching and learning through physical contacts. Learning is not always about obtaining knowledge and skills but building emotions, which handheld devices may not enough to make learners satisfied. Another reason why students in this study needed lecturers was because they could receive feedback from their lecturers with full explanation and timely. This finding is contrasted to the finding of Mellati et al. (2018) which showed that EFL learners in Iran preferred online feedback than face- to-face feedback. They thought that eye contact created a high debilitative anxiety which viewed as an obstacle to effective learning. They felt the nature of feedback in online learning environments was greatly different from that in classes. It can be concluded that giving feedback to students is a sensitive subject required teachers to consider carefully whether on mobile platforms or in classes. In the present study, students demanded lecturers because of quick response during the lessons. An interviewee shared that for some online assignments, they just show answers without further explanation. This feature may make students confused during learning process.
Therefore, receiving instant feedback from lecturers will ease learners’ anxiety and confusion. In addition, lecturers were found to be necessary for detailed explanation in case students did not comprehend the lessons or the assignments. An interviewee emphasized that MALL tools were suitable for knowledge enhancement, but lecturers were good at conveying fundamental knowledge. Zhonggen et al. (2018) highlight EFL lecturers’ roles by stating that they are able to collect difficult language points learners encountered from mobile platforms efficiently and effectively. Lecturers, then, further explicate and demonstrate solutions synchronously or asynchronously. Mobile tools can also amass language points but they obviously cannot classify them appropriately like lecturers. Analyzing students’ problems and suggesting suitable solutions for them need critical thinking ability which can be done easily, or even “efficiently and effectively” by a lecturer but not any portable devices. To explore the issue deeply, the researcher asked students to self-evaluate their homework accomplishment with the aid
of mobile devices only. The percentage ranged from 50 to 80 as pointed out by the interviewees. The rest percentages would be on the assistance of students’ peers and lecturers. All the findings of this present study on this issue certify the decisive role of lecturers towards undergraduates both in and outside classrooms, or it would be better to say lecturers can be considered as a salient element in MALL implementation.
The last issue this study tried to explore was about students’ satisfaction on their MALL lecturers’ roles. A half of the interviewees were content with the roles of their MALL lecturers that they had been receiving since they entered HUFI. However, they really needed their lecturers to carry on more and more tasks or activities involved in communicative skills or vocabulary. There was one opinion deserved to be noted that MALL lecturers tried to follow school’s curriculum made students less motivated.
Learners expected lecturers at HUFI not to focus too much on the curriculum, instead they should give activities related closely to authentic contexts. Many experts have argued the contradiction between what teachers teach and what learners want to be taught in MALL, such as Suwantarathip and Orawiwatnakul (2015), Wu (2019), and Zhang et al. (2011). Zhang et al. (2011) revealed that there might be a conflict between Chinese lecturers’ work and vocabulary delivery schedules. This issue might become a worse problem when undergraduates’ favorite schedule conflicted with lecturers’
teaching schedule. Suwantarathip and Orawiwatnakul (2015) alert to the act of lecturers in providing learners with too many activities or assignments. It may become a big burden for students and can become a boring learning environment. Wu (2019) mentioned three major aspects MALL teachers should take into consideration:
resources, learning tasks, and the timeliness. The resources teachers provide to students should be practical and novelty, moderate scale and suitable for fragmented learning.
The learning tasks on mobile platform should involve in all receptive and productive skills for facilitating students’ improvement. And teachers should also employ more effective measures to follow up students’ learning status and learning quality timely.
In conclusion of Chapter 5, the study found that undergraduates in Vietnam tended to use popular mobile devices such as smartphones and laptops, other tools were not employed considerably compared to students in other countries. The trend in installing related vocabulary applications of the participants at HUFI is quite similar to that of findings of numerous studies. Non-English major students at HUFI had a relatively low level of frequency in English practices. This finding is consistent with some studies as they explained that learners had a tendency to spend time chattering and entertaining, meanwhile, some researchers found that their participants had high levels of frequency in doing English activities. For perceptions, the study showed that undergraduates at HUFI generally had slightly positive perceptions towards using MALL devices, while most of mentioned studies revealed positive perceptions of students. These results imply that MALL lecturers and stakeholders at HUFI must boost more MALL programs in the future to enhance students’ perceptions. In terms of lecturers’ roles, MALL lecturers at HUFI were perceived as people who provided students’ support on informal learning. The interviewees believed that guiding and supporting fully to students’ MALL learning were crucial roles lecturers should take responsibility for in out-of-class learning. Moreover, most of MALL lecturers at HUFI played the role as interesting materials providers to their students. Last but not least, the participants were of opinion that four typical roles of MALL lecturers: a facilitator in familiarization, a guide or a director, a tailor, and a troubleshooter were significant.
They confirmed that lecturers could not be replaced by mobile devices because lecturers could provide benefits to learners and make them satisfied, which portable devices sometimes could not.